Dell PowerEdge C8220 Build and Questions

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Shagrat

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Nov 9, 2016
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Hi all, I have bought this dual Xeon machine.. But I encountered some problems.. The adaptor of the power supply seems to give +12svb to the motherboard in fact we jumpered the two frontal panel pins and the two green LEDs powered on and started blinking after a wile and then the power button became green, we pressed it but nothing output video.. So we powered everything off. After that we tryed to repower on the board but 1 green led starts to blink and the other not and nothing occurred. We had to unplug the jumper and do everything in order but again nothing video.... Anyone has any idea?
 

thomasz

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Oct 2, 2016
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I bought it a long time ago. Originally I tried to fit a SuperMicro X8DTT into it, but found that the case is bit too long for that board. But C8220 is perfect in it.

@thomasz

Nice job.
I been looking for CM HAF 915R mitx stacker case, where did you find the case?

Thanks
 

Shagrat

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Nov 9, 2016
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wow nice case!! do anyone know how to solve my problem? it's really depressing that it does not transmitt any video, the card looks the same ok @thomasz and I can send you pictures and videos abput it, let me know!
 

thomasz

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Oct 2, 2016
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Hello Shagrat, I read your post, but I am not aware of a solution. Since the power button was green, the machine was ready to boot. Missing video output might mean something else wasn't right. Then after power on/off you found only one LED blinking. This doesn't look good to me... Maybe you burnt your board as I did?

wow nice case!! do anyone know how to solve my problem? it's really depressing that it does not transmitt any video, the card looks the same ok @thomasz and I can send you pictures and videos abput it, let me know!
 

thomasz

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Oct 2, 2016
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Here is a cable set I customized from scratch. I tried to make the system as compact and neat as possible.
07.jpg
 

Shagrat

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Nov 9, 2016
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this is the led blinking if you tourn off the psu and disconect the cables then rejump everything the power button becomes green
the cpus starts emitting heat and so does the ram and all the system seems to work good but no video output... this is so bad
but anyway we didn't use the dc booster because on the sb line it seemed to give the +12v needed as the power button tourned green..


@drabadue @Wictar @Gitrooman any idea?
 
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thomasz

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Oct 2, 2016
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Hi all, I had problems in getting a graphics card to work on my v1.1 board. My card is Radeon HD 7570, a light weight card without an external power supply socket. I used a Supermicro angled riser (RSC-R1U-E16R) to connect it to PCIe slot 1. Nothing showed up from the card, but my Ubuntu told me that the card is correctly detected (by lspci | grep VGA).

I have tried the following BIOS settings. Under "Advanced" - "PCI Configuration":
Set "Video Enumeration" from "Onboard" to "Add-in"
Under "PCI Slot Configuration" set "PCIe Slot 1" from "Enabled" to "Enabled without OPROM"
Under "Active State Power Management Configuration" set "PCIe Slot ASPM" from "Disabled" to "L1"
Set "Embedded Video Controller" from "Enabled" to "Disabled"

None of them worked. I had to jump the board to reset NVRAM for a few times. No success so far.

Has anyone got some success to share with? Pictures of BIOS settings will be preferrable. @drabadue @Gitrooman
 

thomasz

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Oct 2, 2016
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I made some progress. HD 7570 never light up, but my other HD 6850, which has a 6-pin external power connector, worked.With "embedded video controller" switched off in BIOS, I was able to see screen graphics after ~4.5 min.

What will be the difference between an HD 7570 and an HD 6850? Was the 6-pin power connector the key? Like @drabadue , I am starting to guess that the motherboard doesn't provide sufficient juice to the PCIe slots, thus graphics card without external power supply will not work.

Is there a fix to it? My v.1.1 board has an extra 4-pin power connector in addition to v1.0. I left them unfilled but could still boot the system. However, I am guessing that they may be crucial for graphics cards to work.

I Googled and saw some vague pictures. See here for some sample pictures of a C8220X, and see here for the putative cable (part # K19G9). The cables seem to be 3 yellow + 1 black. The inside-most one is black.

I recall that @drabadue mentioned:

@Spun Ducky - The only power variable that I might have is the 4 pin power connector on the PCIe riser itself. There is a 4 pin power connector that is labeled as 12VPWR. I tested with my ohm meter that 2 of those terminals were ground, and I *assumed* the other 2 were +12v. Watching YouTube videos of people taking these boards apart showed the wires connecting to this connector as 2 yellow and 2 black. Which lead me to believe it was 2 +12v and 2 ground. Perhaps something in that assumption was wrong. I really wonder if I even need to power the PCIe riser since the card gets its 12v power and ground directly from the PSU?
Are we noticing the same issue?

Untitled.jpg
2.jpg
 
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Shagrat

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Nov 9, 2016
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yeah it seems exactly what I used to power the board up! and now with a bios reset is working! I'm still confused on how to power it up as a normal pc but now it's working
 

kazzy

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Feb 14, 2017
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yeah it seems exactly what I used to power the board up! and now with a bios reset is working! I'm still confused on how to power it up as a normal pc but now it's working
Awesome. Then ill just have to wait for the cable to arrive and and i can get building, ill post some photo's here when i'm done :).
 

Shagrat

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Nov 9, 2016
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Awesome. Then ill just have to wait for the cable to arrive and and i can get building, ill post some photo's here when i'm done :).
yess! let us know! as you can see in the post you might have some trouble making it work but at the end is satisfing if works! a very nice build, what components are you goint to use? for example I'm making my personal custom loop, 32gb ram and a gtx 980 on it with dual xeon e5 2650, super powerful!
 

kazzy

New Member
Feb 14, 2017
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yess! let us know! as you can see in the post you might have some trouble making it work but at the end is satisfing if works! a very nice build, what components are you goint to use? for example I'm making my personal custom loop, 32gb ram and a gtx 980 on it with dual xeon e5 2650, super powerful!
at this time i have 32gb of 1600mhz ram aswell, going to upgrade it later once i got it all up and running. I snatched 2 Intel Xeon E5-2650 for under 50 dollars each from ebay so I'm using those aswell :) , as graphic card i'm using a gtx 1060. Furthermore i'm going to build my own case, probaly won't be as pretty as some things i've seen in the thread but we will see!

I've build several normal computers before this but this project is on another level. But once it's all working the price / performance will be insane and it's fun looking everything up etcetera!
 

drabadue

Active Member
Sep 15, 2016
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I am sorry I have been gone so long. Finally I have gotten moved in and back onto this project.

The last time I played with the board, I was having a video card issue. Code 43 showed up in the device manager.

Well, I got a new harddrive, completely reinstalled windows 10, and then installed the latest Nvidia Driver from a flash drive. No connection to the internet, so no way for Windows to try and install a driver online.

Still the same error. No Nvidia control panel of I right click on the desktop, and still error code 43.

I see that @thomasz was able to get his card working by using PCi slot 1 and deactivating the embedded video in the BIOS. I will give that a try.

I am also curious about that power connection @thomasz mentioned. I don't have anything plugged into mine, and perhaps we need to. Maybe that's why some of these boards are burning, as they are pulling too much current from the 12 pin power connector and need power from the 4 pin on the other side of the board? I'm not sure. I'll take a closer look at my power distribution board when I work with it next.

I would really like to get the graphics card working. My only other thought is because I have it in PCi slot #4, which is tied to CPU2. Maybe it has to be in one of the front slots tied to CPU1 for some reason? I don't know if that's the case, but it makes me wonder.


Also, I would love to find that HAF Stacker case. I saw those when I was searching for my case and wanted to find one.


@Shagrat - sorry I wasn't around to help you out with your board. I am glad you got it up and running. What did you do to reset bios?
 

drabadue

Active Member
Sep 15, 2016
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I made some progress. HD 7570 never light up, but my other HD 6850, which has a 6-pin external power connector, worked.With "embedded video controller" switched off in BIOS, I was able to see screen graphics after ~4.5 min.

What will be the difference between an HD 7570 and an HD 6850? Was the 6-pin power connector the key? Like @drabadue , I am starting to guess that the motherboard doesn't provide sufficient juice to the PCIe slots, thus graphics card without external power supply will not work.

Is there a fix to it? My v.1.1 board has an extra 4-pin power connector in addition to v1.0. I left them unfilled but could still boot the system. However, I am guessing that they may be crucial for graphics cards to work.

I Googled and saw some vague pictures. See here for some sample pictures of a C8220X, and see here for the putative cable (part # K19G9). The cables seem to be 3 yellow + 1 black. The inside-most one is black.

I recall that @drabadue mentioned:



Are we noticing the same issue?

View attachment 4150
View attachment 4151
@thomasz - I have the cable that you are referring to in this link: K19G9 DELL SYSTEM POWER CABLE FOR DELL POWEREDGE C8220 SINGLE WIDE SLE

I can get you pictures of it if you would like.

My board doesnt seem to have that four pin connector across the board from the 12 pin connector. That must be on V1.1 and V1.2 boards only? I am not sure what its function is.



The 4 pin power connector I was referring to in that quote was for the dell PCIe riser board that I bought (persumably from a C8220X). Which can vaguely be seen here:


from this item: Replacement New Genuine GPU V2 ZEUS Cable For Dell CloudEdge C8220X XPW47 | eBay